


Rat Meat, Heatstroke, and Falling in Love

by k0zm0tis



Category: RimWorld (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Gen, IN SPACE!, Lesbians in Space, Outer Space, Wilderness Survival, farming
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-28 06:11:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16235792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/k0zm0tis/pseuds/k0zm0tis
Summary: The life of Anamu 'Pup' Hylis, her fellow unwilling space colonists, and her pet monkey, all surviving in a tropical swamp on a hostile rim world. A log of a Rimworld game (no dev mode, no reloading saves) and the love, loss, and triumph that it entailed.





	1. Day 14-15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a log of my most recent Rimworld game. For reference, we began with three colonists:  
> Anamu 'Pup' Hylis, shopkeeper, 19. Tough, hard worker, gay. Passion in melee, mining, animals, crafting, and intellectual.  
> Chiyoko 'Crane' Crane, child spy, 17. Teetotaler, gay, neurotic. Passion in shooting, construction, and plants.  
> Emily 'Coyote' Luckhardt, rebel child, 19. Teetotaler, super-immune, gay. Passion in shooting, melee, construction.  
> Nina, monkey, 10. Bonded to Pup.
> 
> Please note that except for increasing the probability of starting characters being gay, there was no scenario editing, no save re-loading, no mods, no dev mode used. Storyteller was Randy Random Builder, later increased to Randy Random Medium.
> 
> Also, I skipped the first fourteen days because I didn't want it to feel too much like I was just listing off things that they've built. When we first meet our heroines, they have a small courtyard inside a row of bedrooms, a small walk-in freezer, and a production room, all mined out of a 'mountain'. Their base is basically some fields and a wind turbine inside a c-shaped mass of granite and limestone and they're slowly mining rooms into the rock around them.

Day 14  
We have a basic setup now. A simple production room with a stonecutter's bench and research table. We really need to deconstruct that passive cooler now that the heat wave's gone. A giant batch of smokeleaf crashed on the surface today, so I've spent the day rolling joints. Leaves rot, but dried joints don't, so I'm just getting them into a more sustainable form for selling to anyone who may pass by.  
Coyote is finishing the tile in the bedrooms. Each has a bed, nightstand, dresser, and a flower pot. Crane and I have a sleeping box in the corner for Nina. Poor sweetie. She's already had and recovered from the plague in the scant time since we've arrived.  
Campfire died out in the courtyard and no wood to refuel it. Just as well, the freezer's complete and the electric stove is running, so we don't need to cook there anymore. It's hot enough already (still 104 at 15h).  
We started hunting chinchillas today. They're so cute and gentle, but I know from running Maman's store that their fur is ridiculously expensive. More to sell to passerby in exchange for components and medicine.  
Nina ate the dandelions that Crane planted for me around the courtyard. Knowing Crane she'll just replant them before she thinks I've noticed.  
These joints never seem to end. I've rolled ten and still have hundreds of these cursed leaves left. Going to bed early. Passing by the field - looks like Crane managed to bring in what was left of the potatoes after that blight. A palm tree sapling's sprouted in the field aisle behind the windmill. Crane will have to cut that down before it starts obstructing the windmill. I'll tell her in the morning.

Day 15  
The chinchillas are starting to pile up. We'll need to mine out a place for a butchering table in the kitchen. We could just use a butchering spot... but I'd hate to waste any of that fur. Chinchillas are so small already.  
While Crane has her tools out, we'll need a place to store all the skins. I can't find any wood for the butchering table either - we should put a logpile in the storeroom as well. Should set it up near the production room - or as I've started calling it, the joint factory. Less walking to get raw products and store the finished results. Shit, maybe it really is a factory.  
Visited the grave of those little dogs that died in the crash. I wish we could have kept them, but Coyote said it would be kinder to put them out of their misery. I suppose she knows best - but I hate to think of that moment.

Saw someone coming from the northeast while visiting the graves. Crane told me to get in the gulley and stay there.  
Heard gunshots.  
Crane has cuts on her jaw and chest. Coyote is okay, just quiet. I don't know anything about medicine, Crane's the one who knows even a little, but she's the hurt one and Coyote won't go near injuries. Weird, because she's normally so stoic. I guess it's up to me.  
Out of meals. Crane got up early to make some for me, even though she's clearly in pain. She's good to us, no matter what's in her past.  
When I ran to the old shed for medicine, I saw something huddled on the ground and covered in blood. I didn't want to look too closely.  
There's a grave out past the fields now.  
Guess there was only one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, another human being who actually read this. Good on you, other human being. I commend you. Keep reading, it gets better.


	2. Day 16-18

Day 16  
Coyote was really quiet this morning. Angry. No food, and she slept out on the ground last night while I was using her bed to patch up Crane. I'm letting her sleep in a bit.  
Found vomit all over the freezer floor. Maybe that's why Coyote looked so stiff. I'll tidy it up.  
Nina! For frex sake, NOT THE DANDELIONS  
Whew. Halfway done with the storeroom. At least it's not rolling joints. No door yet, so I saw Crane out cutting that palm tree and bringing in the rice crop again. Heard some banging from the courtyard, so Coyote's probably awake.  
Definitely awake. Seems a bit down. She swept up the floor of the storeroom while I worked.  
Crane's headed out to the old shed. Wonder why. Hope she's careful.  
She's back. Coyote headed out in the same direction and came back carrying some teak. She finished the factory door but then went back out for more. Probably for the butchering table, can't think why else she'd need wood in the freezer.  
Headed to bed early today. Coyote stuck her head in and refueled our cooler with a bit of wood. Should last another day.

Day 17  
But just barely. Couldn't sleep, so I went out to play horseshoes. It went about as well as I could expect considering how dark it was outside.  
Crane told me a story about bombs and partridges. Couldn't tell if it was a joke or not...  
Finished mining out a storeroom. It's square now (mostly)! Back to the joints then, I've put it off long enough...  
Went back to bed.  
Apparently there's a solar flare going on. Crane is butchering the chinchillas and Coyote cleaned out some of the rocks in the storeroom and built me a door. Too bad I'm not desperate enough to eat raw chinchilla, because we're out of meals and the stove is out with the flare. Looks like it's berry hunting time.  
Yay! Crane is a berry goddess. And cleaned up what's left of the chinchillas before I had to look at them...  
On my ninth joint before the solar flare ended - only 10 hours, not bad. At least most of the food in the freezer is still fine.  
Berries for breakfast, berries for lunch, berries for dinner. At least Crane's brought in the last of the rice crop - looking forward to some real meals tonight.  
Crane decided to harvest some more berries just in case before she got to cooking, saw a pod crash just west of the steel ruins. Coyote went to look and brought back some pills. Package says penoxycycline - Crane says it'll prevent malaria and sleeping sickness. Coyote told us to take them but wouldn't take any herself, just said that she'd 'be fine' even if she got sick. I didn't want to take them if she wouldn't but Crane ganged up on me too. It went down slow with no water.  
Seventeen joints total today, for a grand total of 27, with just a million more to go. Uck.

Day 18  
An alpaca wandered into the gulley today while Coyote and I were playing horseshoes. He seems really friendly and not particularly inclined to leave. Coyote got that look, but he's not a dog - he grows wool and only eats grass! She just sighed and waved me off. Victory!  
I was trying out random names for our new alpaca buddy, but no matter what I called, he just kept grazing. Crane walked up, petted him for a second, and called him Ruslan. And he just nuzzled right up. So I guess he's Ruslan now. For forever and always.  
I overheard Crane talking with Coyote last night about authoritarianism. Coyote seemed - intense, to say the least.  
Coyote flirted with Crane and were talking about... things today. Uck. Why is the only thing they have in common so juvenile?  
Oh  
Oh no  
Oh yes  
Crane and I were talking over berries for breakfast and I just sort of blurted out that I want to spend our life here - and maybe after here - together. And she just... agreed. So, um. We're space-engaged. No, fuck that. We're engaged-engaged. I can't stop smiling.

Heard screaming and shouting and a gunshot. Just one. Coyote told me to stay in the factory and went out with her knife.  
Coyote got to a clearing and Crane was standing over a dead monkey covered in blood. Apparently it went crazy and attacked. Crane is covered in bruises and bites - shoulders, arms, legs, hand - but the worst is her nose - I think it might be broken. I hate when she gets hurt. And she stopped to cut down a fucking teak tree on the way back - for wood to make a medical bed. Why is she so fucking analytical? Can't she show a human emotion? Just once?  
Coyote set up a spare bed in the storeroom as a hospital bed. If a cave with rough stone floors full of chunks of rock, weapons, piles of medicine, and some components counts as a 'hospital'.  
A meteorite hit the ground out to the south. Coyote said it's jade. Great for trading once mined - if there's anyone out there that doesn't want to kill us, that is. Still haven't seen any other people since that raid.  
Eighteen joints. Gods, my fingers are tired. On the bright side, the pile of leaves does seem to be getting smaller.


	3. Day 19-22

Day 19  
HUNGRY HUNGRY HUNGRY  
Berries cure all ills.  
Crane got up early this morning. Turns out she was out setting up a shelter for Ruslan on the north side of the factory.  
Coyote finished the windbreak for Ruslan. And I finished the joints! 9 today for a total of... 53! I think. And two leaves left.   
Made some blocks before deciding to switch back to researching. If I can just figure out these old manuals on geothermal energy, we won't have to worry about power sources any more.  
Rained all afternoon, but an aurora appeared at 21h. It's kind of ridiculous, how beautiful space seems from down here. It's brutal. Cold. Dangerous. And unpredictable, given our current situation. But the colors dancing in the sky make it seem almost... romantic.

Day 20  
Woke up by a pod crash just north of the mushroom caves. Found some powdered milk in the wreckage. Dropped it off in the freezer; Crane must have been cooking all afternoon, because there's stacks of meals in here. And some of it even looks palatable...  
Baby dandelions in the courtyard. Oh, Nina. And Crane. My silly girls.  
Researched all day. Crane and Coyote put up another shelter out past the fields for Ruslan. He can pasture nicely out there.  
Crane hunted rats today. Rats, rats, rats. Uck.  
Coyote came in soaking wet but the patio off the freezer is almost done - I can't wait to eat out there. It'll be so much more convenient than walking all the way back to the courtyard for meals.

Rain rain go away  
Come again some other day  
Trees on fire and alocasia too  
I hope the rain's just about through

I'll work on it.  
Crane is still sleeping in the medical bed in the storeroom. It's still in the 70s at night - so why does the bed feel so cold without her? She's limping and her left shoulder seems a bit stiff, but I think (hope) she'll be better soon.

Day 21  
I jinxed it. The rain stopped - but the lightning kept coming. Crane came back from an early morning hunt and said there's a bad fire east of the pasture and north of the mushroom caves. I hope it starts raining again soon. Or that the fire goes out.  
Crane went out and salvaged what she could from the burnt area. There's a bare clearing there now, but we're just making space for more new trees to grow there. A merchant once told me about a type of tree whose seeds only open when exposed to extreme heat - so only fire can bring new seeds and fresh growth. I wonder if any of those trees grow here.  
The research is slow-going; if I could just get these circuits to work...

Day 22  
Slept late today. Crane was up at 5h - I heard her let Nina out. I watched Crane meditate at the foot of the bed until I fell back asleep.  
While Crane was out harvesting rice and cotton, Nina apparently ate an entire cotton plant. I hope it gives her indigestion.  
Ruslan was fussy earlier today and went down in his pasture stable at lunch today. Crane says he might have the plague - I hope he pulls through. His beady little eyes and heavy sighs have really grown on me.  
Crane spent all day cooking, I researched, and Coyote finished the patio furniture. I never thought I'd be so familiar with rat meat and piston schematics.  
Pod crash at 20h and it's my turn to check it out.  
Oh joy  
More smokeleaf joints  
Just  
what  
we  
needed

Coyote's run out of things to build for the moment, so I suggested she try some crafting. From the amount of cursing and banging behind me at the stonecutting table, it's not going so well.


	4. Day 23-26

Day 23  
Coyote got up early. Apparently the crafting didn't keep her occupied for long, because there's blueprints, steel, wood, and some electronics behind me next to the stonecutting table.  
Potatoes and rice and berries in today. Crane was weeding out the aisles too - some of the alocasia was getting big.  
The rain's finally gone, but the wind's died. I wish I was making more progress on this research, so we don't have to depend on the wind to keep our food cold and meals cooked.  
Coyote's still up working on - whatever's in the factory.  
Not feeling well.  
Crane and I used medical test strips - plague antigen positive, both of us. I feel a little better about taking the penoxycycline now. Went out to take some more for the next cycle and saw Coyote stargazing. She so rarely expressed sentiment - I pretended not to see the expression on her face.

Day 24  
Mmm. That's now my favorite way to wake up.  
Crane's so beautiful when she's meditating and praying. She seems so serene.  
Found Coyote in the factory surrounded by stone blocks with a brand new tailor bench next to her. Time to try my hand at sewing - I can't believe Coyote hasn't passed out from heat stroke yet, walking around in that parka.   
Um... practice will make perfect. Hopefully. It has two arms and it's (mostly) symmetrical, so I guess it could have been worse?  
Left the shirt in the storeroom - went back and found the parka in its place. I can't believe she's wearing that thing, but I can't deny that it made me smile - and she smiled back. Progress.  
Sat down with Coyote in the courtyard. Now I know why she wore the parka. I thought it was the light at first, but... How badly must she have been hurt, to have so many scars? And what makes such light, striped scars?  
Crane is particularly grouchy today.  
Oh, I see.  
It's never a good sign when the cook has food poisoning.   
She tried to go out to the fields, but I put my foot down. She's too shaky to be harvesting or doing delicate work. She spent the rest of the day in the courtyard - well-deserved break.  
Ruslan seems to have developed immunity - he's up and about in the pasture again.  
It took Crane almost an hour to eat dinner. I hope she feels better tomorrow; she seems miserable right now.

Day 25  
Crane spent all morning throwing up and cleaning up throw up. Seems better now though.  
She finally headed back out to the fields - only to find a cassowary in the corn. She took care of it.  
Big corn crop - and joy! More potatoes.  
Saw Crane back at the stove when I went in for dinner. Hopefully she's learned something from the Great Food Poisoning of Jugust 5500. 

Day 26  
Twice?  
Twice.  
Decided to cheer up the bedrooms - knocked back a few walls. Coyote's going to come back in with some polished stone blocks and make it look a bit smoother.  
Found some steel behind the west wall of Coyote's bedroom but we agreed to brick it back up for later.  
We finished Coyote's bedroom today. Coyote insisted on finishing the dividing wall even after Crane had gone to bed - woke her up three times. She's going to be so grumpy tomorrow.   
YESSSSS  
I was the only one up at 23h when the latest pod crashed - but boy am I glad I was. 96 bars of chocolate. I woke Crane and Coyote up because, duh, chocolate. Even when I was running the store, chocolate was a treat. Can't wait to try it. I hope it's as good as I remember it.  
We saw two shadowy structures on our way to the chocolate - one on the east side of the mushroom caves, and another in the rock formations just to the east of that.  
On a less cheerful note, there were two dead tortoises (one rotting, one dessicated) in between the structure. Looks like panther bites.  
Coyote went back for a second look at the tortoises and the structures, but there was a dead panther curled up just west of the rotting turtle. Looks like turtle bites and blood loss. Note to self: avoid tortoises.


	5. Day 27-29

Day 27  
First shrubs have taken root in the courtyard since we combed the rocks from the soil.

Heat from the planet's core  
Is such a frexing bore  
When there's so much heat around us  
I feel it's squeezing as it surrounds us  
How much effort will we go through  
It's amazing how much humans will do  
To get something we already have in abundance

Pistons pistoning. Vents venting. Circuits circuiting. Sometimes short-circuiting. I think it says a lot that composing that was the best part of my day.

Day 28  
Coyote headed out to the north today to look at the old granite building near the pod crash site. We thought it would be dangerous, so Crane followed her.  
Coyote took out a section of the wall, and as the last brick fell away... it was an empty room. Not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed.  
Coyote went out to tear down the old limestone wall to the southeast of the mushroom caves, but left the main ruins standing. She passed by the sandstone wall on the east side and said she got a weird feeling. Her instincts are pretty good. We'll steer clear of that for now.  
A giant rafflesia sprouted near the windmill. I made Crane cut it down - pretty, but it just stinks.  
Rat meat and berries - an unholy but strangely good combination.  
Windmill broke down in the middle of a thunderstorm. Coyote came back early to fix it.

Day 29  
The horseshoes pin was almost destroyed when we came out this morning, and all the plants around it are so badly charred that Crane had to cut them down. Must have been a lightning strike. I'm just glad we were all inside and asleep.  
Decided to finish our bedroom walls today - I'm making good progress on the geothermal vents, but I need a break.  
Sensors detected someone coming in from the north side. Coyote and Crane went out past the patio to wait for them. We really need to make some kind of wall, or at the very least some defensive structures. Gods know there's enough sand around for it.  
She snuck up on them from behind the patio. Coyote's the only one injured this time, so Crane is tending to her. She got a good whack to the head and left arm, maybe a concussion. The goose egg on her forehead is ridiculously large. Crane told me not to go out to the pasture for a while.  
There's two graves out behind Ruslan's shed now.  
We definitely need a better defense structure.  
I told Crane to take it easy, but she spent all day out harvesting berries and now she's got the start of heatstroke. And with Coyote down for the moment, it looks like our bedroom will be a construction site for a while.


	6. Day 30-31

Day 30  
We have a lot of blocks left over from the early days before I was researching, so we spent some time arguing about the defense structures over breakfast. Well, Crane and Coyote argued. I mostly ate berries and kept them from killing each other.  
Coyote wants to build a wall east-west along the mushroom caves and the old shed where we first crashed, then north-south along the mushroom caves and the limestone deposit. Lots of pasture, an extra geyser for more power, and the spring just east of the patio.  
Crane says it's overextending, and that even if we had enough stone, we wouldn't be able to get to the perimeter before any attackers. It's a good point, but it's a little scary how... analytical she gets sometimes. I know a little about her past, but now I'm wondering just how much I don't know.  
Pod crash interrupted the argument. I went out to look - and get away for a minute. Found a meal package on the ground, still fresh, so I ate it. Bad plan. I got sick enough that Crane had to come out after me and pick up the rest of the devilstrand I found in the wreckage.  
Passed by the sandstone wall on the east edge of the mushroom caves. Coyote is right, there's something wrong with it. I'll go through the caves next time instead.  
Coyote finished up with the limestone wall and went to salvage in the spaceship wreckage on the northeast tip of mushroom caves. Managed to find a good amount of usable electronics - that'll come in handy, because I think I've just about figured out the pneumatics for the geothermal generator.  
Coyote's in a really bad mood. I feel bad that she keeps trying to hit on us, but I don't know what else to say. Crane and I are happy together.  
I just realized that the corners in our room weren't built right. Great, I'm sure Coyote will be thrilled about ripping them out and redoing them.  
So fucking siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick  
But so frexing hungryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy  
Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh  
Up til 3h, but finally managed to keep dinner down. Maybe it's breakfast by now. I'm going to bed.  
6h and just made it to bed. Sleeping in tomorrow.

Day 31  
In some sort of vindictive glee, Coyote repaired the wall corners in the bedroom - at 9h this morning. At least she's healed up now, but I'm not talking to her for the rest of the frexing day.  
Coyote found a cassowary staring at her bedroom door this morning. Crane came out of the kitchen to see. Looks like cassowary for dinner.  
Coyote used the limestone blocks to lay out tiles in the kitchen. Crane says it makes the dirt more obvious, but isn't that a good thing? I mean, who doesn't like clean food? Crane also shot the tortoise that had been eating the cotton plants. Luckily she did not end up like that panther.


	7. Day 32-34

Day 32  
Crane heard a commotion and is standing outside our bedroom door with her rifle, watching something. Shit, she's firing.  
She tried to come back in, but the monkey squeezed in the door behind her. I jumped out of bed and tried to help, hollered for Coyote. We managed to down it by the time Coyote got here, but she finished it for us.  
I have a little bite on my leg, but it's not bleeding too much and we need to conserve medicine. Crane's left shoulder is all frexed up again, and it bit her legs pretty badly. She needs medicine.  
She insisted on patching me up first, but she's hurt bad enough that it didn't do much good. I used medicine on her, and I think I did all right. I'm going to eat breakfast out on the patio while she sleeps.  
By the time I headed back to bed, Coyote had scrubbed most of the blood out of the bedroom, but there's still some on the threshold. I tok care of it.  
All better now - I'll tell Crane it's because of what a good job she did.  
Got a message on the handheld today - some prick named Hercules calling himself the 'prime councilor of the Strong Dominion of Tolenbium'. Uh huh. He told me they have a bounty out on a nearby bandit camp. I politely told him that our sniper was too badly injured to handle it, and they'd have to take care of it themselves. He kept going on about the reward, some 'legendary' armor. Don't get me wrong, armor would be nice, but who tries to pawn off full steel knight armor from Earth-that-was in a frexing jungle? I'd cook in that stuff. I less-politely told him to shove off.  
When Crane woke up, she and Coyote finally came to an agreement. One north-south wall bordering Ruslan's stable on the right, and an east-west wall just south of the second spring (the one east of the patio). We can always expand it later to incorporate that second geser - it's just outside the southeast corner of their current plans.  
After a quick survey, they moved the north-south wall a few meters east. Apparently our original plans went right through a marsh. Oops.  
Coyote has about half of the southern wall planned or built now. Crane cleared out the brush for her, and about half of the eastern wall, but suddenly ran off to the rich patch of soil she'd marked out earlier. Apparently she had some sort of 'plant epiphany', because now the half of it is a big plot of healroot. I feel much better, having a steady source of medicine - even if it is somewhat primitive.

Day 33  
Crane was completely healed by the time she came to bed this morning. I miss her - we haven't been intimate for a while, and I feel like we haven't talked in forever. We talked as a group and set some new rules - bed by 21h, wake by 5h, and spend at least three hours recreationally in the morning. I think it'll help.  
I'm so frexing close with this geothermal generator - on to the final schematics! Not to be too optimistic, but I think I'll be done by tonight.  
Spoke too soon! I worked all morning and finished around 10h. It's raining pretty hard but I think Coyote can make a good start on hauling the materials today, if not actually building. I think I'll pop over and see how the wall's coming along.  
She just finished the southern wall. Crane pulled in the corn crop and cleared the brush on the geyser site, and now she's fiddling with her healroot again.  
Oh, goody. More potatoes. And more cooking, if the amount of cursing coming from the kitchen is any indication. I wonder what shade of 'charred' dinner will be tonight...  
Coyote went all the way out to Don't Fuck with Tortoises Marsh (as I've now dubbed the marsh east of the mushroom caves, where we found the tortoise and panther bodies) for steel to build the generator. I hope we can scrape together enough.

Day 34  
Big harvest today. Crane brought in cloth, rice, and potatoes. And she started planting a big field of haygrass and dandelions for Ruslan out in the stony area in the northern pasture. If anyone can get stuff to grow up there, it's her.  
On the third try, I managed to produce a passable t-shirt. Well, almost anything is better than what I made Coyote last time.  
I'm worried about Nina - she seems to be becoming more feral as time goes on. I had a nightmare last night that she left the gulley and joined a wild troop - and didn't recognize me when I called for her. Starting tomorrow, I'm going to pay more attention to her and Ruslan. I know it's silly, but I'd hate to lose them.


	8. Day 35-36

Day 35  
Coyote complimented my... assets this morning in passing. I made a joke about carpenters and her wood. Ugh.  
Crane and I haven't spoken seriously in almost five days. Did we get together too quickly? I know we slept together (just sleeping) on just the third night... was it too much too fast?  
I'm just being silly. We had a good talk this morning about dualism. It's so strange that being in such a primitive environment makes me talk more about philosophy than I ever did back in the urbworld I grew up in. Do we need civilization to talk about civilization? Hmm...  
Successfully sheared Ruslan for the first time today! And when I was bringing the wool in, I saw the finished generator. It's so satisfying to see a physical manifestation of all that hard work. I looked back - I started research on Day 19 and finished on Day 32. It seemed like the longest two weeks of my life.  
With all the wood around here, it'd be silly not to look into chemfuel. I've been researching chemfuel since I finished geothermal energy, but I also decided to go try to make some initial forays at taming a boomalope or two - the females produce chemfuel all on their own.  
Found two female boomalopes just south of the jade meteorite. Neither of them seemed particularly interested, though they did eat the corn I offered. I'll work on it.

Day 36  
I cloudwatched this morning. It may be because Crane snuck out to the crash site to visit the dogs' graves (it bothered her more than she lets it show), but I think the clouds look like puppies this morning.  
There's some grass encroaching into the courtyard now, and the cecropia sapling between the bedroom entrances is coming along nicely.  
Crane and I got married today. Just a simple little ceremony in the trees next to the generator. Coyote was there too (and Nina, of course!). And a random tortoise eating some grass nearby.  
Oh my gods, Coyote, we're at our wedding ceremony. Stop hitting on my wife.  
I'm heading out to try with the boomalopes again. Coyote promised to work on clearing out some of the limestone chunks in the center of the gulley while I'm gone.  
Stumbled over a dead body while following the boomalopes. Looks like she's been dead for a long time - maybe since just after we got here. In all the hecticness just after the crash, we must have missed her transport crashing. I hate to think that there may have been something we could have done, even if her faction is hostile to us. I told Coyote about it and she agreed to bury her in a proper grave by the dogs.  
There's nothing more to be done, I guess.  
Her name was Brianna Chouinard. Escaped convict.  
Strange how often an entire human life can be boiled down to two words. Chiyoko, child spy. Luckhardt, rebel child. Anamu, Shop...keeper. But we're making new lives for ourselves now. She's not Chiyoko the assassin - she's Crane. Cook. Farmer. Lover.  
Coyote - builder. Stonemason. Defender.  
And even me - even though I still hate the name, I'll own it. Pup - scientist. Miner. Animal trainer.  
What else will we be, before we get off this planet?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TBC


End file.
